What Are the Best Windows for Hot Climates Like Southeast Louisiana?

If you have warm drafts through your home and enormous electricity bills over the summer, your windows may be to blame. We are a top window provider in southeastern Louisiana. Here is our guide to choosing the best windows for hot climates.

A window is an important part of your home. Besides looking great and letting natural light in, it plays a huge role in keeping warm air in during cold winter months. More importantly, though, the best windows for hot climates also keep heat out during hot summers. Less heat in your home means less cooling costs for electricity and a more comfortable home overall.

As we discussed in an earlier post, homes lose up to 30% of their energy through air leaking around windows and doors. Replacing windows that are ten years or older can lower your energy bills by up to 15% per year. This is especially true for homes with single-pane or even standard double-paned clear-glass windows. According to ENERGY STAR, switching to energy-efficient windows can save homeowners over $450 every year.

Whether you're trying to reduce your monthly energy costs or your old windows have become unsafe, it may be time to look at replacement windows for your home. If you live in southeast Louisiana, where it is hot and humid, make sure your replacement windows have these elements. These elements will provide the best protection, energy efficiency, and comfort.

The best windows for hot climates offer great protection from the weather. They stop leaks and drafts that can happen with older windows.

A common cause of these drafts can come down to the frames themselves. People often use wooden frames in hot, humid climates. These frames can rot or warp over time.

Instead, choose high-quality vinyl window frames. These outperform every other type of frame in a hot, humid climate, as we explained in detail in an earlier post.

Next, do you know where your window was manufactured? You may be wondering why this is important. It is a key factor in choosing the right windows for areas like southeast Louisiana with similar climates.

When looking at window manufacturers and design, you'll realize a lot of windows are manufactured for broad distribution across the United States and mild climates. Unfortunately, this leaves a few problems when you consider our extreme climate. Southeast Louisiana faces 100-degree summers, high humidity, and moisture, as well as our sometimes-turbulent storm seasons.

One simple example of this is the location and quality of E-glass used in your window. E-glass is a surface on your glass that reflects infrared light (heat). It's an important feature for energy efficiency.

Unfortunately, some manufacturers put the E-glass surface facing inside to keep heat in. This makes sense for climates with typically colder air, like the Midwest or northern states. Not so for our hot climate.

In cold climates, a large portion of your utility bill is used for heating your home. This means that manufacturers may not prioritize having the best E-glass. In the southern region, most of your yearly utility costs go towards cooling your home. Blocking heat from the sun is crucial for windows, making it a top priority for LAS.

Through the years, our staff engineers at LAS Shutters + Windows have tweaked our window design over and over to stand up to our southeastern Louisiana climate. At LAS, we put the E-glass facing out. Think about the temperature in your car during summer when all of the windows have been rolled up for a few hours. Would you want the E-glass facing the interior of your car and keeping the heat in or facing the outside to keep the heat out?

Finding a local manufacturer is important because they know and design for your unique climate.

Similarly, the quality of the E-glass in your window is also important. All E-glass is not created equal.

At LAS, we use a special type of glass known as soft-coat, clear low E-glass. This glass is known for its excellent insulation properties. This E-glass is better than any other solar control low E-glass on the market, with 50% light transmittance. You can learn more about E-glass in our guide on the topic.

If you're looking for the best windows for hot climates, this attention to materials makes a huge difference. It's why our ENERGY STAR^TM rating exceeds the southern U.S. requirements by 30%.

Since we design, manufacture, install, and warrant our windows, we work towards constant and continuous improvement for our customers. When we begin to see problems or flaws in the design, our engineers go back to the drawing board and modify them. In that way, we create the best windows for hot climates like southeastern Louisiana.

For more information about our windows, or to get a free estimate, contact us today.

Originally posted on May 12, 2014.